Superior Spider-Man #4 - The Aggressive Approach
Cover -
Writer - Dan Slott
Pencils - Giuseppe Camuncoli
Inks - Edgar Delgado
Letterer - Chris Eliopoulos
Review -
Well, if the cover's anything to go by, Spidey's in trouble if Massacre's back! Last time they met in AS-M, Peter spared Massacre after promising that no one, even villains, will die on his watch. However, he's no longer on watch...
It's now been a month since Ock took over Peter's body, and, as we can see from the first page, he's living it large with all his spider-bots crawling around him. It's a bit odd how he calls them his "pets", but he is an evil scientist at heart.
He remarks how he has become more efficient than Peter, apprehending almost four times as many criminals and preventing theft of twelve million dollars worth of property. Good going. He even "rescued" Vulture's chid henchmen by webbing them up for child services to deal with. However, two get away, which we'll get to in a bit.
Ock also says how much respect he has now garnered from petty criminals, who are giving up at the sight of him. We can thank his new spider-bots for all this.
Ghost Peter is shocked when Ock redirects an issue to the local fire department, rather than dealing with it himself, claiming he has more important places to be, and that he's earned a rest after all he's done today. Peter tries to remind him Spider-Man doesn't work through volume, but through his mantra, which I'm sure everyone knows.
But Peter's right: what is more important than being a hero? he forgot about aunt May's knee surgery. She's making a good recovery, but the doctor tells Ock not to get her hopes up about walking without a cane. He's not fond of the doctors' opinions at all.
So, to Horizon Labs Ock goes to develop some kind of odd invention. We can notice that he's got Living Brain as his new lab hand, looking relatively unthreatening with the welding torch in his hand. Ock even has him serving lemonade to Uatu Jackson and Max Modell!
Turns out, Ock has created a "light weight exo-limb", which can help the injured walk by grafting these needle looking things to the spine and brain. He wants to test it on aunt May! The guys protest, calling him Doctor Frankenstein. Ock corrects them saying "That's Doctor Peter Parker. You'd do well to remember that."
Ghost Peter gets giddy as Max Modell reminds Ock that Peter never actually finished his doctorate. In anger, he trashes his new exo-limb and storms off.
Now we cut to Ravencroft, where Ashley Kafka, who is going to take a look at Massacre. When she enters his cell, guarded by a shifty looking guard, she finds Seaborne, looking past his best. I can't really describe it, so I'll let you look at the picture.
That shifty looking guard is Massacre (surprise, surprise), and he murders another guard, and goes for Kafka's face, just before we cut to ESU.
Peter is now apparently a stud, receiving appreciating looks from his class mates. He still looks like a d*ck to me. Peter reminds him that he's too old for those girls, and Ock's too old for their mothers.
Peter contests Ock's choice to get a degree and give up being a hero full time, reminding him that he's an Avenger. He makes a good point. You wouldn't see Captain America with a part time job as an Apple genius.
Ock's professor is his old class mate whom he used to bully for his abnormally large nose (which is huge). He forgets who he is and insults him. A small hand reaches up and gives Ock a card, saying "Nice first impression, slick." Before he can respond, the person has disappeared into the crowd of students.
Ock receives a call to Ravencroft, where Carlie and Jameson are waiting. Jameson blames Spider-Man for the breakout of Massacre as he spared him before. Since the breakout, Massacre has killed 8 more people, and the blood is apparently on Spidey's hands.
We find out what Massacre did to Kafka's face. He needed her eye to get out of the prison through the scanners, and he couldn't just hold her hostage. Let's just say the body with a hole in its face tells us that.
Ock vows to end Massacre and make up for Peter's mistakes, which does not bode well for Massacre, or Spidey's reputation.
Cut to Westchester Burger Town, of all places. Massacre is casually sipping on a drink whilst pointing a gun at each patron of the restaurant in turn. His sociopathic tendencies are made apparent when he asks for Mocha Cola, because the restaurant only serves Phizzy Cola, and he claims he would kill for a Phizzy Cola, and he would.
Massacre makes personally reasonable demands and says that if the hostages abide by them, they'll be set free. Why would you not agree?
The guy at the till presses the silent alarm, which Massacre sees, and so opens fire on the customers, claiming that he didn't kill them, the guy behind the till did. With a series of "BRRRRT"s, he kills all customers except for a mother and child. Who said Marvel wasn't dark?
He tells them he left them alive on purpose so he can keep them as hostages.
We now see Uatu Jackson having a bit of a moan about Peter in his lab, and developing an EMP generator in case the Living Brain attacks him.
Spider-Man has managed to sneak in to Uatu's lab unnoticed and requests his facial recognition software to be implemented into Spidey's spider-bots.
Massacre, meanwhile, has driven to the heart of the city in the mother and child's car. He gives her two options. One is that he blends into the Times Square hustle and bustle, never to be seen again by her, and the second option is that he follows her and if she calls out, he kills her and her son. Dark.
That's the last of the main story for now, but remember those two henchmen that flew away from Spidey? They are now flying above the city and debating what to do now Vulture's gone. They see a spider-bot and think that Spider-Man will now come get them.
A green leg sporting a purple show crushes the bot, saying that he knows how to crush Spider-Man once and for all...
Goblin's back.
In all, I liked the story. It's a much darker route, but it fits in with the darker Spider-Man. Slott has done a nice job here in the introduction to this two-parter.
However, I don't think the artwork complements it as well as it should. It doesn't seem to have as much detail as in previous issues. Peter also looks a lot... weirder. I guess that's deliberate due to the new Peter, but he looks so unfamiliar it just looks wrong. Having said that, Green Goblin looks really good in Camuncoli's work.
Rating -
Story - 5/5- Another perfect score, Dan! Sort it out!
Artwork - 4/5 - The lack of detail let this book down, but the action shots make up for that.
Overall - 4.5/5 - Still a very good book with a compelling and addictive story, just my personal issues with the art in this one let it down a teeny tiny bit.
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